Yesterday I posted a clip of the fantastic Piano Guys. I love their interpretations of musical pieces and that particular clip of the Mission: Impossible theme also starred a wonderful violinist called Lindsey Stirling.
She fitted in so well with their style and I enjoyed watching her so much that I had to have a look at her other offerings. It was no surprise to see that she has some fantastic clips of her own and I thought you might like to see one too.
Interestingly, this song, called Crystallize, is the first time I have heard of Dubstep violin. They aren’t really the kinds of musical styles you would think of combining are they!
(When I was watching this clip all I could think of was how cold her fingers must have been. 😀 )
We love these guys in our house, especially our budding musician, son Number 2 who couldn’t think of a better gig than getting paid to play his keyboard in amazing places.
When I found this clip of The Piano Guys doing the Mission Impossible theme I thought it was so funny I just had to share it with you.
Clearly it is hard to be a super spy when carrying a cello, especially since you have to take a folding chair everywhere you go… 😀
(I especially loved the use of rosin to reveal the lasers and the blooper reel at the end.)
On this day in 1953 Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people to climb to the summit of Mount Everest.
What an achievement it was at the time. Many had tried the same feat and all, until then, had failed; some losing their lives in the attempt.
Once at the top they only got to spend fifteen minutes at the summit as they were low on oxygen. Hillary took some photos and Norgay buried some Buddhist offerings before making the careful climb down.
I wonder if Norgay and Hillary suspected at the time that their names would be inextricably linked with the mountain from then on?
What do you think of when you hear that title, the racehorse of the desert?
When I read it I immediately thought of a camel. Quite fast when they want to be and appropriately adapted for running in sand. We have quite a few wild camels here in Australia, in fact, we have the largest wild population of them in the world. Considering that they are an introduced species that is quite an achievement.
Anyway, I would never have connected that particular title to this vision of a gigantic lizard, would you?
It is a pity there isn’t anything in the top photo to use as a scale but I think we will all agree, that is a lizard that would have been left to go his own way, unmolested by pretty much everything. If you would like to see a similar photo here is one from 1935 I posted a while ago of a 6ft long Bungarra with a wary dog for scale although I get the feeling todays Goanna is even bigger….*
After the wonderful clarity of the photos of an 1934 outback christmas I used in my post yesterday I went back to that particular paper to see if they had any other gems and these guys were on the very next page. Fortunately this time there was a note as to who took the picture and we can thank Mrs. E. Lambert and E. Tindale for these pictures.
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*Here is a link to an earlier post with a youtube clip of a far more recent encounter with a goanna, this time the goanna is helpfully perched on a backyard bbq for scale. They are smaller these days, but still impressive. 😀
What a fantastically clear set of photos these are! I have no reason to post them other than the fact that I just loved them. 😀
These blokes outback Christmas in 1934 looked like a bit of fun didn’t it? The guy snuggled up having a sleep-in looks like his nice dream is about to come to a cold, wet and unpleasant ending in a few seconds…..
How wonderful is it that they are sleeping outside their humpy, cooking on the ground and using crates for furniture but still managed to bring an accordion along for entertainment. The player doesn’t seem to be taking his job too seriously though does he, he seems more interested in what he is getting for breakfast. 😀
To complete what has clearly become shark week, here is a bit of long reading over the weekend, just in case you had nothing better to do. 😉
This link will send you to an interesting Trove article by Fred Maher in 1936 detailing shark attacks in Australia from 1837 to 1936. It is a bit long (and faded) to reproduce here but you just know it is litany of damage and death…
The first shark attack was noted in January 31, 1837, in the Maclean River NSW. A 12yo boy was attacked by an unknown monster and died later in hospital. The suggestion that his injuries were caused by a shark were ‘generally discredited’. I wonder what they thought did the damage?
In 1847 an aboriginal was paddling his feet off the sailing ship Rattlesnake and a ‘fearsome ghost stole up on him from beneath the serene blue waters’ and bit off his leg. Eeeek.
In 1919 a young man was wading in chest deep waters when his leg was unexpectedly bitten off. His mate pulled him out but he died later. —>
It goes on with more tales of terror but all I need to know is that sharks eat people. No surfing for me!
Out of curiosity I tried to google the size of the largest shark ever caught. The biggest one I could find was just under 18ft according to some, and around 20ft according to others.
I have to say that none of them seemed entirely accurate though. More ‘it was THIS big’ fisherman’s tales? If you know of an accurate report of the biggest one ever landed please let me know!
I did find this interesting reference in an article from 1945.
Apparently the biggest shark ever caught was a (White?) Pointer near Port Fairy 70 years earlier.
That shark was a frightening 36ft 6 in.
Just to put that in perspective the shark in the photo below (caught off Kangaroo Island in South Australia on Christmas eve 1930) is a tiddling 16½ foot long.
The shark in Jaws was only 25ft long…
I REALLY want that Port Fairy monster to be the biggest shark ever caught. I wonder how accurate that measurement is, or has the shark’s size grown with each successive re-telling of the tale?
I wonder how big the biggest one lurking out there actually is. After all, to get that big it would surely have to have enough cunning to know to avoid things bigger than itself, like boats with eager fishermen…
To really, really, end shark week I will share this final clip. It is thanks to people like David Attenborough and terrifying visions like this you know why I only really want to go to sea in something the size of a warship…
If you wish to use any images or text from my blog be sure to ask permission and include a link back to Buried Words and Bushwa, and full credit to it.
Trove.
The newspaper articles here come from the National Library of Australia (trove.nla.gov.au). Get on there and do some text correcting! You never know what you might find...
Buried words and Bushwa. 
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